


Henderson's Morgue

by CrystalMoon884



Category: Original Work
Genre: Based on The Fault in Our Stars, Cancer Paitent, Dark Humor, Death Jokes, F/M, Gen, Nothing like the Fault in Our Stars, Shipping, suicide references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8137109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalMoon884/pseuds/CrystalMoon884
Summary: For Bree, her life is ruled by her fear of death. Being a terminal cancer patient who has an expiration date, this is a bad thing for her and her family. Eight Ball has been moving all over America all his life for his father's business, a morgue for murder victims so that the murderers can leave the bodies in a 'safe place'. His life has never been normal, and he is okay with that. Until he meets a girl who makes him want to truly see everything that life can offer.Bree and Eight Ball are both convinced that they have the worse lives ever, until they meet each other and their opinions of bad lives changes.(This was based off of a text post I found on Tumblr)(New chapters added whenever I write them, this process can take a while with my editing and stuff)





	1. Chapter one: Bree

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is told from the POV of the main character, Bree. I understand that correct grammar is not always used in her chapters, but this is intentional. Her chapters are supposed to seem like they are being narrated by her, and she doesn't have correct grammar 100% of the time.  
> Only Bree's chapters are written in play script format, Eight Ball's chapters are not.  
> I hope you enjoy!

Hey, why don’t we play a little game, you and I?

Cool? Cool.

This game is called ‘think of the worst possible thing that could ever possibly happen to you, then make it happen’. Ready to play? Yeah? Awesome.

Well, I’m thinking and oh. . . How about getting a new kind of rare stomach cancer that no one has ever even heard about, then the doctor saying that he can’t fix it, and it being a terminal thing.

It might be a bit hard for people who aren’t me to have some kind of weird, super strong strain of super cancer, but if you are me, then congratulations, you won the game! You have the shittiest life ever!

But cancer and death aside, my name is Bree. Yeah, I know, what a stupid name. I sound like some kind of person who goes goth overnight, and then doesn’t understand why people are calling the cops and freaking out when my neighbors call the cops after I murder my parents for a Satanic ritual.

Not me! I’m not into Satan, and I kind of hate any kind of needle form because of my treatment.

Long story short, my life sucks. And when life sucks people usually try to give up on it, ya know? But, ya see, I have this little problem. I’m deathly afraid of death. I don’t even want to think about what the afterlife would be like. . . I mean, I identify as Christian, but my parents are the ones who are super into the whole ‘going to church and praying every night’ kind of thing. I more care about normal things. Like my fear of death.

But I also have this weird and morbid love of funerals. I mean, a bunch of people in the same place, thinking about the same person? Um, yes please! It distracts from everyone else’s lives, so that they can worry about someone else, and then they get a cool stone with their name on it, and then everyone remembers them.

Yes, I’m a narcissist and I also have a very big ego. Got a problem? No? Good.  
Andbutso I was sitting in my living room one day watching Camp Camp on my tablet, enjoying life. I am kind of totally in love with the show, and I can’t stop myself from watching it every time I see a new episode on YouTube. And then, as I sat there, watching my favorite character learn some sort of half-assed lesson about something, and it hit me.

I love funerals, and I hate death. So why not fake my own death, and then become Batman and never die even when something should conceivably kill me? I could fight evil guys, but the pay doesn’t seem very good. . . Or I could be Deadpool! I do like unicorns a lot, and I have cancer! So, while I thought about the great possibilities of being Batman and Deadpool at the same time (Batpool) I grabbed my phone from where it sat on the couch cushion next to me, and tapped on the only number in my contacts that I didn’t share half my genes with and dialed and waited until I heard the phone get picked up and yelled.

 

Me (yelling): OH MY GOD, ALLYSON, I HAVE THE GREATEST PLAN EVER! IT INCLUDES BATMAN AND DEADPOOL AND GETTING OVER MY BIGGEST FEAR AND I NEED YOUR HELP TO PULL THIS OFF ALSO A LOT OF DEAD BODIES AND PAID ACTORS AND A FUNERAL HOME AND SOME OTHER SHIT I CAN’T THINK OF RIGHT NOW BUT WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS AND IT IS GOING TO BE AMAZING!

Allyson (confused): I’m confused, Bree, what are you talking about? Is this another stupid plan like with the rattlesnake? Bree, sometimes we take things away from you because we love you.

Me: What? No, not another pet rattlesnake that I almost successfully stole from the zoo but didn’t because someone, but I’m not going to name names, made me give it back or else she’d call the cops.

Allyson: It was stealing! From a zoo that was made for children with disabilities! I couldn’t let you take it!

Me: I replaced it with a rope, I don’t know what the problem is. . . But I didn’t tell you about my plan yet! Oh my God, Allyson, you are going to love it!

Allyson (slightly agitated): I am slightly agitated that you called me for another one of your plans. I am kind of in the middle with my one week anniversary dinner with Kyle. I had to leave the room to talk to you and he-

Me (interrupting Allyson): Wait, what? I thought you were dating Zeke?

Allyson: That was a week ago. But I think I’m going to dump Kyle once this is over, it turns out that he is not a natural blonde. With a really bad dye job.

Me (slightly confused): But aren’t you an unnatural blonde-

Allyson (interrupting me): So what was this plan of yours?

Me: Oh, yeah! My plan! I am going to fake my own death and then become Deadbat, and move to Gotham City.

Allyson (very confused): What? I don’t understand anything you just said. What is a ‘Deadbat’?

Me: No, no not Deadbat, it is Batpool. Actually, no. Yeah, Deadbat sounds much cooler.

Allyson (done with my stupid plans): I’m done with your stupid plans right now, I’ll talk with you in about an hour, okay? Then we can come up with a better plan. Hopefully one that doesn’t involve anything illegal.

Me (slightly sad): But why not anything illegal? I mean, stealing isn’t illegal if you leave something behind-

Allyson: I’ll talk to you in an hour. I’m leaving now, bye!

 

And so Allyson hangs up on me. Here’s the thing about Allyson: she is popular. I take classes at home on my computer to finish high school these days, but Allyson still goes to the local private school I used to go to too. I told my parents that I didn’t want to ever leave my room ever again after going to the doctor and being told that I was going to die and that there was nothing that they could do about it.

Andbutso less than a month later I was taking online classes, leaving my best friend all alone at school. But she was super popular and she had people lining up to sit with her at lunch (not joking, the line was just about out the cafeteria door some days).

She is tall (but not too tall), she is pretty (but not too pretty), she is smart (but not too smart) and she has boobs (and they are pretty big, this is what draws a lot of guys to her). Allyson has everything going for her. 

We were really big friends back in elementary school. Then when we both went to the private middle school in our town, Allyson dated the most popular guy in our grade (his name was Noah. I still hate the name as much as I hate him) and then she got tons of new friends and admirers. I stuck by her side, and as she climbed the social ladder, I was always there to hear her out. I always took her side and beat up a few people for her, though she would get very mad at me because she ‘was a pacifist’ and ‘didn’t believe in violence’ and that I should ‘feel bad for breaking a girl’s arm and sending her to the ER just because she said that she didn’t like Allyson’s hair’.

So while she was dating guys and going out every night to parties and having tons of fun, I was at home doing what I love the most: putting on sweatpants, walking out to my living room (it has the best wifi connection in the house) and then watching Camp Camp, Red vs Blue and RWBY for hours. Then, once I had gotten my fill of cannon content for my favorite shows, I’d go onto Archive of Our Own and read fanfiction until about ten, when my dad would carry me into my room and tuck me into bed. My parents are really nice, wonderful people who want me to have an amazing life before I die.

I looked at my tablet for the time, and saw that it was a little after five. I sighed and took out my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) and opened up the Tumblr app I downloaded on it to look at some fanart. About halfway through the hour that Allyson had told me she’d call me back as soon as it was over, I found a new really amazing artist and I followed them, got into a fight about ships in the RWBY fandom, found a new favorite ship for Camp Camp and found a cute picture of Caboose and Church from Red vs Blue (I don’t ship them though, Church xTex for life, yo). But after I had done so many things, Tumblr was beginning to bore me, so I opened my music app on my phone and played some Nightcored Twenty One Pilots and some dubstep mashups of my favorite Lion King songs. What can I say, I like what I like when it comes to music. Finally, the hour ended (right during the middle of Tear in My Heart) and my phone began to buzz and a picture of Allyson with a headband with kitty ears on it popped up onto my phone. I waited until the fourth ring (just a habit of mine) before answering.

 

Me: Yo, talk to me. How was it?

Allyson: I broke up with him, it was pretty messy though. He kept saying he loved me and that he didn’t want to leave me, and then I walked out on him.

Me (laughing): You have no compassion when it comes to guys, do you? Looks like I rubbed off on you. And not in the sexual way.

Allyson: Bree, what am I going to do with you. . . Well, I have some good news and some bad news.

Me: Good news first, it makes the bad news seem worse that way. Just the way I like it.

Allyson: So that bad news is that since I broke up with Kyle, I’ll need a new guy pretty soon, so I have my sights set on Zayne, so I’ll be spending the next two days trying to lure him in, meaning I won’t have time for any of your stupid plans.

Me (slightly sad): I wanted the good news first. . . But I think that I can do this alone. Faking my death shouldn’t be too hard, but finding a body that looks just like me might be a bit hard. . . Maybe I have a secret twin Mom and Dad never told me about. . .

Allyson: No killing people, no doing anything illegal, no hurting anyone, okay? You can’t attempted murder until I have a boyfriend, okay?

Me: So what you’re saying is that I can kill people in about two days?

Allyson: Yeah, pretty much. So now is the good news.

Me: Heck yeah! I hope you found a dead body, or some kind of Deadbat suit that I can wear. I’m going to need one after the funeral when I fake my death.

Allyson: A new morgue and funeral home opened in the city, and they have a phone number on their website, and I have it. I’ll email you the URL once this phone call is over.

Me (super excited): I’m super excited about this! Now I’ll be able to have a place to put my dead fake body - yet really dead also - dead body. This is going to be perfect!

Allyson: You can call the number, but you can’t visit the place until I have a boyfriend, okay? Don’t have your parents drive you there, I don’t want them to worry about your mental health, they already worry so much about you.

Me: Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll visit them after I call them tomorrow, this should be fun!

Allyson: Bree, just don’t hurt yourself or anyone else, okay? Just promise me that no one will get hurt, okay?

Me: Fiiiiiiine, I promise. You always take the fun out of things.

Allyson: I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Get some sleep, okay? Night.

Me: Yeah, yeah, whatever. Night.

 

I hung up my phone and opened up my email, seeing that Allyson had sent the URL as she had promised. Good thing she had, the last time she hadn’t answered my emails and sent me what she had promised to send me, I had sent no less than a full gigabyte worth of gay MLP clopfics. She had raged at me for days, and I had said in my defense that I was ‘just trying to make sure that she knew I meant business when she didn't’ email me what I wanted, when I wanted it’.

I got up off of the couch and met my dad in the hallway from the living room to the kitchen. My house is pretty big, and it is really nice, but I only use about half the rooms. The other half are too far for me to walk. I have cancer, I shouldn’t be expected to do anything but sleep, eat and sleep through those stupid seminar things that hospitals put on like ‘dealing with your sickness’ and ‘how to show cancer who is boss’ and ‘how to make a good ship that pisses off everyone in the fandom, while making absolutely no one happy’ (that last one didn’t happen, but I kind of just made it up in my head).

 

Dad: Hey, Bree. You heading to bed now?

Me: Nope, not yet. I’m going to get some food and then go to bed. There is a difference. I have cancer, I can’t skip meals. Or meals that I made up in my head.

Dad (laughing): And what is the name of this made up meal that you’re about to have?

Me: I call it ‘Justin’.

Dad (ruffling my hair): You name things weirdly, don’t you, kiddo?

Me (pushing away Dad’s hand): It was so then I could eat Justin Bieber.

Dad: You do what you want to do, Breezy, don’t let anyone stop you.

Me: In that case of ‘do whatever you want’-

Dad (interrupting me): No pet snakes.

Me (pouting): But why not?

Dad: You wanted to call it ‘Nope Rope’ as a name, and then - in your words, not mine - ‘set him upon your enemies so that he may kill all those who oppose you’.

Me (mumbling): It was a good idea.

Dad: Well, I’m going to head to bed now, you’ll have to tuck yourself in tonight. I love you, sweet dreams.

Me: Yeah, I love you too.

 

After I talked, this awkward silence filled the air. It was like some kind of bad smell from a port a potty. Like, you know you have to do something so you endure it, but at the same time it makes you just want to leave and hide behind your mom and tell her to make the bad smell go away and then she pulls out her battle axe and then destroys the port a potty and then everyone cheers and then you go pee in a bush. Yep, just like that.


	2. Chapter Two: Eight Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tables have turned, and things are changing in Bree's life, all thanks to a mysterious new person, who goes by the name Eight Ball. Things have gotten. . . Complicated in his life, and all he wants is some normalcy. Too bad Bree is the closest thing that he will get to being normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second of many chapters that I hope to create for this story.  
> I hope you enjoy!

The way I look at it, life is like this: you live and then you die.

 

The stuff you do in the middle is meaningless and irrelevant for everyone unless you’re the guy who invented the microwave or if you’re some kind of dictator who people try to kill with poison every other Tuesday. Like: ‘oh, hey, look, another murder attempt. Just another day in the life of me, the murdering dictator who rules over the Kingdom of Shitty Names’.

 

But for the rest of the world who isn’t invented life altering technology and enslaving entire countries, life is really, really, boring. And then you die. And that is kind of where my job comes in.

 

When my dad was a kid, he realized that he really loved the idea of death. Like, really loved it. Two prison sentences later and thousands in bail money down the drain, he realized that killing people may not be the best choice for a career. But he knew how to evade the law good enough to make the cops think he had only killed three people. In reality he had killed five, he had hidden the bodies well enough that he didn’t have to worry about the cops finding out.

 

Then he met my mom in prison. Then I happened. Then my dad’s dream of killing people was killed in the place of another dream: helping people who had just killed someone get rid of the body. Yeah, I know, what a great idea for a job. But after my mom committed suicide and my dad wasn’t sure what to do, the whole idea of a morgue just for murder victims came about.

 

I’ve lived in sixteen different cities because of my dad’s love of moving his business around, giving it a new name each time. Dad also gave himself a new name each time, and I got one too. First my name was Darkness, then No Smiles, then a bunch of other goth names, until I ended up with Eight Ball. Let’s just say that Dad was less than pleased with my name choices, saying that they were ‘the exact opposite of inconspicuous and I needed to be more ‘normal’.

 

In truth, I’ll never have normal. Because as long as Dad’s morgue is open and running, I’ll be running, and as long as I’m running, I’ll be assuming weird names. I mean, nothing else in my life is normal, why should my name be normal?

 

As I pulled myself out of bed in my ‘bedroom’ (the break room in the morgue) and pulled on some pants and my ‘official uniform’ (a shirt that says ‘Hello, welcome to Henderson’s Morgue’), I checked the calender in my ‘bedroom’. I slipped my glasses onto my face, and I sighed when I saw that August was almost over, meaning that I’d have to run from the cops or fake some kind of online school, neither of which sounded fun. I walked over to my mirror, messed with my hair for a full minute before giving up on the fruitless affair, then stepped out the door.

 

“Welcome to Henderson’s Morgue, Eight Ball.” I muttered to myself under my breath as I walked over to the front desk. I watched our one and only employee walk around, looking for where she had lost her goggles.

 

“Eight Ball, how wonderful to see you awake!” Claire said, in her ever-cheery voice. I cringed at it and gave her a weak smile. She then nearly turned the whole desk upside down looking for her goggles. She turned over papers, unplugged the lamp from the wall and nearly broke the phone as it fell to the ground. I grunted in anger at her, but she was oblivious.

 

“Your goggles aren’t here.” I snarled, hoping that she would take a hint and just leave already. Claire just frowned deeply and began to sniffle, showing that she was about to completely tear up. Here is the thing about Claire: she has this very pretty dark skin, she is almost six feet tall and she has very big breasts that she will show off at any point. 

 

And she is by far the easiest to upset person in whole world, despite that fact that she could probably break a pro wrestler’s arm without even trying. So when Claire starts crying and I’m around, Dad kind of freaks out (that was sarcasm, I have to carry all the dead bodies to the graves all alone for weeks when I make Claire cry). Claire has been with us since the beginning, since my dad found her on the street and gave her a home. Now she does the autopsies on the bodies, to make it look like we are running a totally legal business.

 

I began to panic as she wouldn’t stop sniffling, and I knew what would come next. I quickly took her hand and looked into her eyes, making her stop sniffling right away. We are like brother and sister, always there for each other. When it is convenient for me, that is.

 

“Claire, it is going to be okay. I’ll help you find your goggles. Do you remember where you last had them?” I asked softly, speaking slowly so she wouldn’t get overwhelmed by my words. Another thing to know about Claire: she is kind of an airhead when it comes to anything but autopsies and finding new ways to break and bend laws to keep us all out of prison.

 

“I remember having them in my pocket. . . I remember that.” Claire said, thinking. She slowly took her hand out of my grasp and stuck it into her left lap coat pocket and pulled out her goggles. “Oh, my God! I found them, Eight Ball! Yeah!”

 

It took all my self control to not start yelling at her for messing up my desk when what she was looking for was in her pocket. I settled for a very loud sigh and a facepalm. Claire jumped up and down, and began to giggle uncontrollably. I growled, agitation filling my whole body. I got up from the front desk so that I could pick the phone and the papers that had fallen to the floor during Claire’s rampage.

 

“Oh, I’m so happy! Come give me a hug!” Claire said, attacking me. Remember what I said about her being able to break the arm of a pro wrestler? Well, Claire also gives death grip style hugs. And, being as I am much shorter that she is, my face is right at chest level on her. Which means that whenever she pulls me into one of her hugs, I get assaulted by her boobs.

 

“Please stop.” I said, gasping for breath. Claire looked down at me, then reddened and pulled away. She giggled and then babbled on about being ‘super sorry’ and how she ‘had to get to work right now or else Mr. Jones would yell at her’ and how ‘I should get to work too before Mr Jones comes in and sees me slacking off’. 

 

I just nodded along, watching Claire put her dreaded hair up into a bun on the back of her head. She then leaned down and kissed my forehead and then walked away, leaving me to take care of the aftermath of Hurricane Claire.

 

Once the cleanup was done, I sat in my chair at the desk (the most comfortable chair I had ever had for a front desk chair) and started setting up the new computer that we had. I had had Claire read the directions out loud to me last night, and I had had some help reading it too. Since Dad didn’t really allow me to go to public school, I had had to teach myself everything I knew about reading. Only Claire and dad know, I always give official papers to them. 

 

I heard the startup sound from the computer and began to make an account call ‘Morgue’. I am not very creative when it comes to names, so that is all the creativity that anyone using this computer will see from me. I then opened up Google Chrome (because who uses Firefox these days?) and began to bookmark sites that I knew that anyone coming to the morgue would want to see, then I began to make notes of what I’d have to have Dad encrypt later when he got a chance to. I then made a folder for my own personal bookmarks. The folder mainly consisted of movie, TV show and comic book pirating sites. There were a few public record searching sites, and a couple for social media accounts that I had created for the morgue and the people who needed to use it. 

 

I finally bookmarked the morgue’s official site, it had been posted and made official yesterday. I was assaulted with bad computer editing of a bad site, and I nearly had to look away. Dad spared every expense with this site, I’d have to go back and change it all. However, he had at least put ‘Henderson’s Morgue’ in big letters across the top, and he had the address and the phone number on the main page. Unlike one of the other sites, we didn’t last long there, as no one could find out where we were, and we weren’t on Google Maps.

 

I sighed, remembering the whole thing so vividly in my head. Dad had been so angry, Claire had started to cry. I had run away for a few days. When I came back, I had gotten my nose pierced and had gotten gages. I had been staying with less than trustworthy people, who had wanted to make me a part of their gang. Long story short, their bodies were the only ones that we took care of the whole time. Since then, dad has listened to my suggestions when it came to the website.

 

I heard the phone ringing next to me, signaling me that it was time for work now. I sighed and waited until the third ring (just something I’ve always done) and picked up the old phone, curling the phone around my pointer finger, like some girl calling her crush.

 

“Henderson’s Morgue, you stab ‘em, we slab ‘em. This is Eight Ball speaking.” I said, feeling the new name out on my tongue. I liked it, and decided that I might just like it here. Until I heard the voice on the other end of the phone.

 

“Yeah, so what does that catch phrase mean? Do you take people who have been murdered? So what if I want to fake my death? Are you guys the people to call for that?” The voice was very feminine and sounded like she was about my age. She also sounded very confused at the catchphrase that we had used since the first morgue had opened (the name changed every time, but the catch phrase stayed the same).

 

“Um, why are you calling? It this some sort of prank?” I asked, losing my nerve. Was this some informant for the cops? Was this the last stop? Was I going to go to prison? I began to freak out a little, nearly hanging up the phone before I heard the voice on the other side speak again.

 

“No, this isn’t a prank. See, I have this fear of death, but I have a love of funerals. So I wanted to fake my own death and go to my own funeral because I have terminal cancer and I don’t want to be afraid to die when the time comes.” She said, speaking quickly, but that seemed to just be how people talked around here. Moving around so much, I have many different accents and it caused slurred speech, so I didn’t talk fast if I could help it.

 

“Oh.” I was hit with a feeling of wanting to help this girl, and to make her feel better. Maybe a funeral would help? But that wasn’t why dad had started this place, he might not let this girl get over her fear. Suddenly I was struck with a feeling of protectiveness over this girl. I had to help her! If I didn’t help her with her fear, who would? We were the only funeral home in town, and cancer was deadly!

 

“Um, you there?” The girl asked, speaking slowly for the first time since she had called me. I snapped out of my thoughts and into the now. I fumbled for words in my head, until I looked down at the sheet of paper that told me what to say when things got dicey or weird with a customer.

 

“Yeah, I can help you out. I will just need your name and number, and you will have to set up an appointment here with our employees. Can I please have your first and last name, and the first and last name of the person who will be having the funeral too?” I said quickly, slightly slurring my speech and bringing out the Southern accent that only came out when I was very afraid and nervous, but only Claire had ever noticed it.

 

“Yeah, my name is Bree Miller. And the person who will be buried will be a look alike body of me that I found and killed, so also Bree Miller for the dead body slash person slash thing. And my number is 558-489-14870.” She said, speaking quickly, barely giving me enough time to write down the phone number and names of the people who I would be burying and having a funeral for. I highly doubted that this girl would kill someone for this, but I had met some killer housewives and college students in my day.  
“Thank you, miss Miller-” I said, about to finish off the call when she interrupted me.

 

“Please, call me Deadbat.” She said, still speaking very quickly. For a second, I was at the loss for words. Yeah, I had gotten code names over the years, and I had my fair share of alias, but this was new.

 

“What? You want me to call you Deadbat?” I asked, sure I had heard her wrong. Deadbat? Was that some sort of ship name or something?

 

“It is what I will become once I have faked my own death. Then I will move to Gotham City and solve mysteries and fight crime, and also work jobs for money. But not like a hooker.” She said, finishing off her odd tangent in way that seemed perfectly normal to her. I held back a sigh and began to scribble her name down next to her number.

 

“Okay, Deadbat, when can I expect you to come in for an appointment?” I asked, trying to end off the call successfully. I knew that Dad was probably listening on the other line, we hadn’t had anyone bring in a case yet since we only set up yesterday.

 

“When my best friend has a boyfriend again, so like tomorrow. She just had a messy breakup yesterday, so she wanted to take a day off from chasing after guys. You know how it goes, don’t you, Mr Ball?” She said, sounding peppy and chipper as she spoke, even faster than before.

 

“Um, I’ll see you tomorrow then. And it is just Eight Ball, not Mr Ball.” I said, blushing a little bit. What was it with this girl? She was all over the place! It was worse than Claire being drunk!

 

“See you then! Bye!” She said, singing out the last word, leaving me with nothing to say as she hung up the phone. I sat there, the phone still up against my ear for a good minute before finally putting it back on the receiver.

 

“This is going to be interesting.” I said to myself, sighing on the inside. I looked at the fake potted plants that were the cheapest that dad could buy, at the old paintings that had cigarette stains on them, at the old carpet that had needed to be replaced ten years ago. 

 

This place was on it’s last leg, and now we were apparently the Make a Wish Foundation. I pushed my hair back and leaned back in my chair, still trying to come to grips with who I had just talked to.

 

“Welcome to Henderson’s Morgue, Eight Ball.” I whispered to myself, beginning a public records search of Bree Miller. “This is going to be the death of you.”


	3. Chapter three: Bree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deadbat, the most amazing person ever to live, ever is coming to Henderson's Morgue. Just not today, because someone just had to go find a new boyfriend. Things are about to change in her life, but who is to say that it is for the best?  
> Soon enough, all will once again be right in the world.

My whole life is pretty much a series of bad decisions, bad luck and bad music playing in the background.

 

Anyone who says differently clearly hasn’t met me, and therefore has no say saying anything about my life. That makes them a stalker. And you know what I do with stalkers?

 

I call the police and tell them that I have a stalker. What did you think? That I was going to kill them or something? Um, hello, have you met me? I’m not totally stereotypical.

 

No, killing people is pretty much where I draw the line. It is a thin line, FYI, so you wouldn’t want to mess with me when I’m in a bad mood, okay?

 

As I waited for another day to pass as I did everything to not kill myself from boredom. I only had one more day until I would go to the morgue, arrange a funeral there because they had a funeral home there too, and then fake my death and become Deadbat and become less scared of death. Everything in my life was leading up to this, just like when I was supposed to take that snake from the zoo.

 

Only, this time I would get away with what I had planned out for weeks (and by weeks I mean days, but weeks sounds more dramatic and just overall better).

 

I spent my day mostly talking with Mom, since she didn’t have to go to work that day and liked to spend time with me whenever she could. Since I had cancer, we didn’t really go out and do a bunch of things, and we usually just sat inside and watched movies that we thought would be good, or we just talked.

 

And my mom loves to talk.

 

Mom: Bree, have you talked with Allyson lately? How is she doing?

 

My mom loves Allyson. It is like Mom wants to bring her into the family, and have two daughters instead of just one. (Which is me, for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention up until this point.) I would be okay with it, as long as Allyson didn’t ever come to sit with us at the table. When at the table for meals, I’m very depressing, and I don’t want anyone to take that away from me.

 

We all need to have a little fun now and then, yeah?

 

Me: Yeah, she is good. She has a new boyfriend now, his name is Zayne.

 

Mom (smiling): Oh, I’m so happy for her! Can you tell her that?

 

Me (sighing): But I can’t text or call her when she is with her boyfriend, it is a ‘no Brees allowed’ time. Which sucks. It should never be that time! It should always be ‘let’s talk with Bree and hang out with her too every single time she calls me’ time.

 

Mom: Well, honey, Allyson is a smart girl and she will never forget that you’re her best friend and that you will be forever while boys will be temporary. You just have to have a little faith in her, okay? Or do you already know this? You are the current teenager, things have changed a lot since when I was your age.

 

Me (looking up at Mom): How long ago was that?

 

Mom (coughing): Um, let’s just say it is a long time, okay?

 

Me (bored of this conversation already): So how is work?

 

Whenever I ask my mom about work, I tune out. Mom works at someplace that is pretty awesome but also really stressful at the same time, and I don’t really know what she does for a living. For all I know, she could be a stripper. I never asked what either of my parents do for a living, I always just assumed that my dad was some kind of super-soldier for the US Army, and that my mom was a really good stripper. Together they fought crime, like Scully and Mulder, only like Mom and Dad.

 

Me: Uh huh. . . Yeah. . . Sounds cool. . . Oh, really? That sounds horrible. . . No? Tell me more. . . Uh huh. . .

 

I continued to slowly nod along to what my mom was saying, trying to make it look like I cared and that everything she said was being processed in my mind. I began to stare into space and started to nod off a little bit, wondering what it would be like to be Deadbat for real. What would I wear? Would it look more Deadpool or Batman? Would anyone think it was a ship or something?  
Or worse, would I be mobbed at Comic Con?

 

I began to think so deeply on the subject that I got very quiet and stared into space, and Mom took noticed almost immediately.

 

Mom: Bree, is something wrong?

 

Me: Huh, what? Oh, no, nothing is wrong.

 

Mom (reaching over the kitchen table and holding my hand): You sure sweetie? You need to see a doctor? Need some pain meds? Anything you need, say the word and I’ll do it for you.

 

Me: I’m fine. . . But how about you do something since you’re offering to do something?

 

Mom (sighing deeply): I’m not going to go and pretend that I killed myself in a prank for your father.

 

Me: . . . Okay, I get the message. But are sure you’re sure?

 

Mom (sighing very deeply): Yes, Bree, I’m sure. I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to scare your father like that.

 

Me: Fine. But I guess that something is wrong. Something that I think that you can help with.

 

Mom (eyes getting wide): What is it, baby? What can I do for you? Just say it, consider it done.

 

Me: You know my big fear? Like, the one that isn’t my fear of old people in the color pink?

 

Mom: Of course, honey. What’s wrong? Do you want me to call Dr Frecke?

 

So, here’s the thing about Mom, she loves to always call my doctor whenever anything happens. Whenever I fall down and scrape up my leg, she freaks out and calls a nurse, she once called 911 when I fell down the stairs. There were three stairs. I had just been told I had cancer, and Mom was afraid that even a breeze would knock me over and kill me.

 

But the prospect of Dr Frecke being called again. . . It scared me. I liked him well enough, but he was also kinda weird. He wanted to bond with me, and make sure that I knew that I could come and talk to him about anything I needed to. Honestly, it was kind of creepy.

 

Me: No, no! No need to call my doctor! I’m fine, Mom, I really am. I just need someone to talk to.

 

I smiled a little after I said it, trying to see if she would maybe take a hint that I wanted to talk to her. Which, with my mom, was kind of a tall order.

 

Mom: That is what Dr North is for. She can help, and she is someone to talk to. Dr Frecke is wrong for this, you need a councillor, and Dr North is the best councillor money can buy.

 

Well, I guess not. My eyes dropped to my hands, which were folded in anxiously in my lap. I didn’t know what to say, really. I searched in my head for something for a frantic second until I spoke the first words that came to mind.

 

Me: Sure, fine, whatever.

 

Mom (smiling): Of course, honey! I’ll call her right now! Then I have to go shopping for food and other things in the house. . . You want to come with, sweetie?

 

Mom’s tone clearly stated that she couldn’t care less if I came with or not, she was just happy to make sure that her daughter was taken care of. By anyone but her.

 

Mom read something about being a good mom a long time ago in a magazine, and so now whenever she wants to talk with me, she always refers to that magazine article. She must have tried really hard to live up to whatever that person had said, because she always said what the mothering books said.

 

Usually, they were published by the same people who were making money off of kids going to shrinks, and so why not endorse it? My dad sometimes told me that my mom tried to have kids before and after I was born. But after failing no less than six times, she gave up and they ended up with more money than they knew what to do with from their parents, and a daughter whom they weren’t sure how to raise.

 

Sounds like the beginning of some great story right? One where everything goes right, then everything goes wrong, then the hero sacrifices themself and then everyone lives happily ever after.

 

But, no. Just my shitty life.

 

Me (waving my hands): Naw, I’ll be fine here. I have some Camp Camp episodes to watch anyways.

 

Mom (smiling): You do what you want to do, honey. Whatever makes you happy.

 

She got up from the table and quickly grabbed her cell phone (iPhone 5s) and her shopping list (even longer than last week’s list, it seemed to get longer with each trip) and stuffed them in her purse. She gave me a peck on the forehead before running out the door, pushing my blonde hair out of my eyes.

 

I watched as she ran out the door, not even pausing to grab a jacket. I felt a pang of sadness in my body. Was I really that bad? They wouldn’t respond to a perfect teenager, so I had become troubled. And not even now could I talk with my own mother?

 

I heard the sound of her car’s engine turn on, and I heard her rush out of the driveway, and I let my shoulders fall, just noticing that my body had tensed. I let the air leave my lungs and I felt my body decompress, trying to make the stress leave my body and mind and soul.

 

But the feeling of depression and worthlessness still stuck with me. It was something I couldn’t run away from. Emotions can be killer.

 

Me: Yeah, I’ll just go in my room and watch something like I always seem to do. I’ll talk with you soon enough.

 

I sighed and walked down the hallway next to the kitchen and up the main staircase, up to my bedroom, locking myself inside. I walked over to my bed, wrapping the blankets around my body. I looked to the bed segment of my room, the clothes and stuff section still had the white fairy lights glowing. I didn’t have any intentions to turn them off, and saw that it was only a little after one on my clock. I sighed and burrowed into my blankets, escaping to my happy place.

 

I thought about how sometimes people would love to live where I live, to be able to live with the supposed happiness that comes with my life.

 

But it was times like this that I remembered everything that was wrong with my life, and everything that is also right with it.

 

My parents.

 

Me: But I know I won’t talk to you ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In can you haven't noticed, yes, the POV HAS changed for each chapter. YES the chapters go from normal script ("No!" he said) to play script (Nathan: No!).
> 
> This is going to stay the same throughout the story. If you really don't like one type of writing, then just drop out now because the way that the chapters are written is not going to change. I love writing like this, and it helps to get the POV of the different characters across in the best way.
> 
> Also, I am a huge Rooster Teeth fan, and I love RVB and RWBY, that was one thing that I made sure that Bree and I would share.


	4. Chapter four: Eight Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although taking care of the morgue (and, by extension, Claire) is a sometimes all-consuming task, Eight Ball has just a few things that he does on the side.  
> Just a few, nothing to worry about.

All my instincts were screaming at me to run.

 

The darkness that swallowed my body was all consuming and I couldn’t see anything, my instincts were going crazy, my whole mind was having trouble seeing a way out of this situation. All at once, I heard footsteps and I could feel someone’s breath on my neck, just inches away from my body.

 

I could almost feel the ghost of another body crashing into mine, and my human mind left me, I called back to the things that were hard wired into every animal in existence. I forgot everything besides surviving, and I felt my muscles almost move on their own as they remembered movements from so many fights.

 

I dodged without any flaw, and then flicked my wrist, my knife ran the length of my opponent's stomach. I could hear the satisfying sound of my opponent’s whimpering. I felt a solid kick land perfectly on my back, knocking me down to my hands and knees.

 

Damn I thought, He’s kind of good, good enough to catch me off guard. But not good enough to win.

 

I used the downward force that was pushing me to the mat to kick my opponent in the shin, landing both of my feet in the perfect spot to do the most damage possible.

 

I sloppily pulled myself to my feet and blocked two punches that were supposed to hit my face, and punched my opponent once in the jaw. My hand hit home. I could feel something break under my fist, and a savage smile bloomed on my face, my opponent whimpered like a puppy.

 

I punched him a few times in the ribs, hearing some satisfying cracks. I was then caught off guard as my opponent punched my in the face, sending my down onto the ground.

 

Gasping for breath, I lashed out, lunging and swinging my knife like a madman, seeing only flashes of red as my knife hit home again and again.

 

A flash of a bright white light filled my vision, filling my mind with fear, and making my adrenaline spike. I could feel my opponent stiffen under me, and I cringed away from the white light, afraid of what would come next, even though I had done it a million times before.

 

All around me, the training lights came back on, leaving me to sigh and roll my eyes. I had won and kicked another person’s butt so bad that they had had to stop the match before I really hurt someone. Again.

 

I saw the harsh red of the blood of my opponent mixing with the red of his shirt and shorts. He looked like Hell, and I couldn't care less. I was good at fighting, and I never went easy on anyone in a match. Why should I feel bad?

 

I could hear the booing from people who were watching the match, as they had lost bets on the kid that I was sparring with. I dropped my training knife with a clang on the cement floor, letting it fall from my hand without a second thought.

 

I stalked from the training floor over to my corner, hearing cheering from the people who were sitting near my corner. I let myself smile a little, it always felt nice to win or be so much better than whoever I was fighting that they have to stop the match early.

 

I could see that Claire and my dad were both standing at my corner, Claire was jumping from one foot to the other, clearly worried about if I was hurt or not. My dad was counting money that he had won on bets placed in my favor.

 

“You did great, now let me see you, I hope you didn’t get hurt.” Claire said in a rush, grabbing my shoulder and holding me in place as she gave me a full pat down and made sure that nothing was broken. I struggled to get out of her grasp for a full minute before she finally let go. I may be very good at fighting, but I would never dream of hurting Claire in any way, not even by accident.

 

“I’m fine, I’m fine! Look at me, I’m fine!” I cried, motioning to my whole body with my hands. I still was high on adrenaline, and everything still looked too bright and too clear for my eyesight to catch everything all at once. Claire raised an eyebrow at my outburst and I sighed.

 

Of course my dad would think that coming here on our day off would be a good idea. Coming to Ocean usually just meant me getting beat up, and my dad walking away a couple hundred dollars richer. It pissed me off, but I wasn’t going to say anything, fighting was something I loved to do as well.

 

Plus, I would never be as good as my dad.

 

“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay, Eight Ball. Since when is that a crime?” Claire said, her voice wavered and edged on a whine, alerting my dad that she might cry. He glared daggers at me when he looked up from counting his money. This was going to be bad unless I did something right now.

 

“No, of course not, Claire. I just don’t like people touching me right after a match. I don’t want my blood and the blood of my opponent to get all over everything.” I let the bullshit just fall from my mouth, hoping that she’d buy it as a good excuse. Claire thought for a tense moment (though it wasn’t tense for her) and nodded slowly, accepting my excuse.

 

“Yeah, that seems like a good reason.” She said slowly, still mulling it over in her head. I sighed in relief, and my dad looked back down at the money he had won from my fighting ability.

 

“Do I have another match?” I asked Dad, and he thought for a second and shook his head, confirming my suspicions. I was too good for anyone at Ocean today, like most days.

 

Most people went to other illegal fight clubs, as this one was more ‘legal’ than most of the others that were in Illinois, and it made people kind of anxious to be in a place of business - a semi legal one at that - and watching a fight. Ocean was pretty much a half legal dump, reminding me of home.

 

I smiled at that thought and I couldn’t wait to get back to the morgue and work on the website and try to fake some more paperwork, and the funeral home part of it needed to be redecorated, since we had a noncriminal coming in for something for once, and I wanted to make it look good.

 

“Can we go then?” I asked no one in particular, since asking my dad directly to leave would be seen as insubordination and was a punishable offense.

 

“I want to place a few more bets.” Dad said, pushing past me to go to the betting area. I growled under my breath as his body came into contact with mine, but kept myself from lashing out and I took a few steps towards Claire, not sure where to go now that my dad was gone.

 

“We should probably go outside now, huh?” I asked, smirking. I looked up to Claire and she nodded, leading me out of Ocean.

 

As we walked out of Ocean, I thought back to when I had first come here. I was back when I had first come to Illinois, my dad had brought me here. He had said that it was good place to learn some fighting skills. We were just out on our own, and Claire wasn’t with us yet, so it was long time ago. I was only about five or six then, a little while before Claire joined up and my dad started to turn his dream into a reality. But Dad just kind of lead me into Ocean (the real name of the fight club was ‘Far From the Ocean Fight Club’) and hoped that I’d have the ability to fight without being taught. And lo and behold, I had that skill.

 

I needed to be taught a little bit, but for the most part I was a natural fighter. I didn’t even really have to try to win, it just happened. After losing a few times, Dad knocked some sense into me, and I’ve never lost since.

 

Ever since he won a couple hundred when I was younger, whenever we were in the Illinois area or in between getting a morgue and slash or funeral home, he would bring me up here and make some quick cash. It was usually spent on drugs shortly afterwards, and I never saw a cent of it, but I still loved to fight. There was just something about it that I couldn’t get enough of.

 

“What are we going to do now?” Claire asked, and I realised that we had officially stepped out of Ocean. I snapped out of my thoughts of the past and I began to think about the present and future. 

 

Ocean was in a pretty seedy neighborhood, and I didn’t want Claire or I to be put into a bad position. I sighed and tried to think when I heard a voice from the dark alleyway across the street from where we were standing outside of Ocean.

 

“You kids look like you’re a long way from home. Need a ride back to where you’re from?” A feminine voice asked, sounding fake sugary and sweet. I cringed at the sound of the voice and took a step back, angling by body in front of Claire, just like I always did whenever there was danger or when something didn’t seem right.

 

“We’re fine, believe me. Who are you?” I asked in a steely voice. I didn’t put any emotion into my words, just careful thought. I didn’t want to tell my dad that I had gotten my ass handed to me in a fight, outside of Ocean no less.

 

“You can call me a friend.” The voice said, echoing off the alleyway. The voice of grating, and I was beginning to become very pissed off at it. “But, if you want a name, why not call me. . . Arry.”

 

“Arry?” I asked, not letting even the slightest bit of sarcasm or disrespect sneak into my tone of voice. Claire was slowly inching towards Ocean behind me, crouching low to the ground.

 

Claire was wearing a white V-neck with her goggles around her neck and black jeans. Her hair looked the way it normally does, but her eyes were filled with fear from ‘Arry’. She looked better than most women of the night in that outfit, causing me to get her fear secondhand. I didn’t make any indication for Claire to stop moving, and she inched closer and closer to the door.

 

“Yeah, Arry.” The voice said, and I could see some kind of movement in the alleyway. Claire moved closer to Ocean when she saw the movement, taking a full step rather than just a baby step as she had been before.

 

The movement was soon revealed to be a person as the veil of darkness of the alley was lifted. A woman in her early twenties stalked from the alleyway, having so much confidence it made me recoil a bit. She had on a skintight black long sleeved shirt and black leggings and knee high boots with a short heel on them. She had short blonde hair that came down to her jaw, and was angled to be longer near her face and shorter near the back of her neck. She had on a fingerless pink glove with a stylized ‘A’ on it that adored her left hand, it was the only splash of color on her otherwise all black outfit.

 

I narrowed my eyes at Arry, knowing that her name was most likely an alias. I opened my mouth to speak, but Arry quickly held up a hand to silence me. I closed my mouth and furrowed my brow, not liking where this was heading, but showing begrudging respect anyways. You never knew who could turn out to be an ally once the smoke was finally cleared.

 

“Don’t speak. We don’t have much time.” Arry spoke clearly and her voice carried perfectly over the street that separated us, but it was still to sugary sweet for me, and it made me want to fight her right here and now. “I have something very important to tell you, Eight Ball.”

 

At the mention of my name my eyes got wide and looked at Claire, who was only mere inches away from the main door of Ocean, and mouthed the word ‘stop’ to her, and she didn’t move a muscle, trusting me and my judgement. We knew each other better than we knew ourselves, the trust level between us was very high.

 

“And what is that?” I snarled, letting anger into my tone of voice. Arry took a step back at my outburst, clearly not looking for a fight. She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, clearly not expecting this out of me. She had clearly never met me.

 

“That I know what you and your dad are doing. And I would be careful if I were you about not failing to give the girl who called you a good funeral, or whatever she wants.” Arry said, sounding dead serious. “That girl’s parents are very important in some of my plans, and I don’t want them to be angry at you, that could be bad for me. And I might not get paid the full amount.”

 

“And why should I care about you and your affairs?” I asked, letting all my anger and disdain and disrespect slip into my voice.

 

Arry pulled a knife from her boot and threw it, landing it in the door right next to Claire’s head, causing Claire to whimper in fear. My head whipped towards Arry, ready to beat her ass into the ground.

 

“Because when I don’t get paid, I kill everyone who took my paycheck away from me.” Arry said, backing away from me. I ran at her, ready to attack when I heard her yell something.

 

All at once, Arry was taken from the ground to the air, and I heard the whirring of an engine and I saw that she was wearing a harness. Suddenly everything clicked, and I growled at Arry, wanting nothing more to kill her right then and there.

 

“See you again soon, Eight Ball!” Arry yelled from the rooftop of an old hotel, and then stuck her tongue out at me, causing my anger to flash red hot. She then laughed and ran off, leaving me in the middle of the street, looking up the rooftop that she had once been standing on.

 

“This is just great. Just perfect!” I cried, looking back at Claire, who was now completely in tears, thinking about the lecture I’d get from Dad when I got back home, not to mention that now I’d have to worry about Arry coming to the morgue.

 

Everything was just peachy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy the change in the way that the chapter is, what with the more action packed opening.  
> I hope everyone who reads this has an amazing day, and they have a fun existence!
> 
> ***This chapter was not edited when it was written***


	5. Chapter five: Bree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is finally falling into place for Bree, things are beginning to look up. The morgue is finally within her reach, Allyson and Zayne are going to be there, and things are going to be just amazing.  
> If only there weren't so many bumps in the road.

Finally, the day came.

 

It felt like it had taken forever (and for a very impatient person, it was pretty much forever), but finally,  _ finally _ Zayne was Allyson’s new boyfriend. That meant all of two things for me:

 

One: I could call Allyson again whenever I wanted to, with whatever dumb stuff I wanted to talk about. It was awesome to be able to do that again, I felt like abusing my new power and calling her at six in the morning, but I didn’t.

 

I’m not a total jerk, but I’m close.

 

Two: I could finally go to the morgue and funeral home! I was so excited when I realized it that when I woke up, I starting jumping on my bed and screaming happily, just like any other happy teenager would do.

 

This warranted my parents to come in, and then wonder what was going on, and so I explained everything to them. My mom then quickly assured my dad that I was going to talk with Dr. North very soon, to which I scrunched up my face and shook my head for a second, and then kept on jumping and yelling.

 

Dad was happy with the answer that Mom gave him, gave me a kiss on the forehead, told me to stay safe, and left for work. Pretty much how most of my mornings go most of the time. Then Mom tried to talk me into putting on some real clothes and stop jumping, and I ran off to shower and get ready for the day.

 

After brushing out my blonde hair for a while after my shower and drying my body off, I was ready to go. I put on a short light pink dress that Mom had bought me, as I thought that this was some kind of ‘special occasion’ that a dress would be cool to wear for, and it looked like it would work for today.

 

I had to make a good first impression on the people who would be handling a fake dead body that is supposed to be me, after all.

 

Usually I  _ hate _ dresses with a passion. The last time that Mom and Dad tried to get me to wear one, it had caused some difficulties with me. I didn’t think that I had to wear a dress to a  _ wedding. _ I mean, I wasn’t getting married, so why should I dress up? So, I went in my PJ’s. They were footie PJ’s, with snowflakes and snowmen on them, it was great.

 

I was the most lively one in the wedding pictures. The bride didn’t care for it, but the groom loved it.

 

Andbutso, I didn’t have to wait long for Allyson to show up at my door. She showed up at about seven in the morning, and I was ready to go. I had put on some of my favorite shoes on (Chuck Taylors with the night sky and a moon on them) and my hair was falling freely over my shoulders and down my back. Allyson was happy with what I was wearing, and quickly gave me a few ‘rules of engagement’ for Zayne.

 

Allyson: Don’t scare Zayne, okay? He doesn’t know you yet, and he agreed to do this for me and you. Be grateful. Don’t be creepy.

 

Me (pushing past Allyson): Yeah, yeah, whatever. I just want to go and get to the morgue and funeral home. Like right now. Who wants to break some traffic laws?

 

Allyson: No, no, no breaking any laws, okay? This place is probably  _ very _ legal and nice and traditional, and we don’t want to offend anyone, okay? That would be bad, Bree.

 

Me: I’m not listening to you because all I hear is rules, rules, rules and don’t do this, don’t do that. I’m going to do what I want, this should be fun! Burying a dead body that looks like me is going to be fun!

 

Allyson (sighing): Some days, Bree. . .

 

So we got into Zayne’s car. He had an older model of some kind of expensive sports car, named after a pony or horse or something? I don’t really know, but I do know that they weren’t very cheap. They were expensive.

 

Allyson hopped into the passenger’s seat, and I climbed into the back of the car, not buckling my seatbelt until Allyson told me, just like every time that we got into a car together. Zayne was a typical looking guy that Allyson would date, he had short black hair that swept over his forehead, jeans and a shirt with the Batman logo on it. Needless to say, I liked him already.

 

He had a large tattoo of a car key (with the horse/pony logo on it) on his right forearm, it almost seemed to dominate that part of his body. When Allyson grabbed for this right hand, she touched it gingerly. My guess was that the tattoo was such a bad life choice that it was causing physical pain. Aced it.

 

Zayne: Hey, Bree. Allyson has told me about you. You sound like an amazing friend.

 

Me: Allyson must have been talking about someone else she knows that is named Bree.

 

Zayne: . . . And she’s funny too, I like her!

 

Then an awkward silence fell over the car, Allyson was typing the address on her GPS app on her phone (iPhone 6) and she pressed a few more buttons and whispered the directions quietly to Zayne as we drove along.

 

I saw the my town rush past me out of the window. The park where I had once broken my arm. The elementary school where I first met Allyson. The house that Mom and Dad thought about buying when I was little. The private Catholic school that I pranked every year by posting signs about Satan all over the front lawn (they had called the cops on me once for it too, but I just kept doing it every year). This was my home.

 

Allyson was talking quietly with her new boyfriend, I was going over my sixteen years of life that I had spent in this town and everything was going amazing in the car. I couldn’t think of a better drive in my life. Much better than when my parents took me to the doctor, or when Allyson had first been able to drive and had taken me down to the ice cream place, only to be pulled over by a cop.

 

Wait, no, I take that back, that was an  _ amazing _ car ride. The cops really scared Allyson, and she started crying and I almost started laughing. It was a pretty fun day when that happened, the cops understood and drove us home in the back of their car, and it was pretty cool to see the back of a cop car.

 

Only, when they dropped me off at my house, my mom came running out and wanted to know if I had gotten arrested or was in any kind of trouble. She was surprised to hear that Allyson had done something wrong, but Mom forgave her pretty quickly.

 

Allyson: Bree! Hey, Bree! We’re here!

 

Zayne (whispering): . . . Can she hear you?

 

Me: Huh, what? I wasn’t listening.

 

Allyson: We’re here, Bree. We made it to Henderson’s Morgue.

 

I looked out the window, and I could see a square building with a large, stone sign that spelled out the words  _ Henderson’s Morgue  _ in large letters. The sign just had that kind of ‘climb on me, Bree’ kind of shape.

 

Me (whispering): We're really here. . . We really made it. . .

 

Allyson: Yeah, we made it. You want to go in first?

 

Me: Yeah! Let’s do this!

 

I jumped out of the car pretty gracefully when I said that, and I began to run to the door when I felt sharp, perfect fingernails cut into my arm.

 

Allyson: You called ahead, right?

 

Me: Yeah. Can I go now?

 

Allyson (sighing): Yeah, go ahead.

 

I continued to run to the door once Allyson’s fingers had stopped cutting off blood to my fingers. My dress curled behind me, making me look like one of those dogs with really big ears when it tried to run. Only my dress was much shorter that those ears, and my dress was pink and also not attached to my head. Other than that, it was just like a dog with ears too big for its head running. Yep, just like it.

 

The door was suddenly within my grasp, and it felt like the moment leading up to stealing that rattlesnake. Only this moment was so much better. But I still prefered the name ‘Nope Rope’ over ‘Henderson’.

 

I pushed open the door and I heard a little bell make a noise and I immediately met eyes with a guy who looked about my age, with bright green hair and a nose piercing, along with large, black rimmed glasses. I elected to call him Green Head in my head.

 

Green Head: Welcome to Henderson’s Morgue. How may I help you?

 

Me: I am Deadbat. I have come for a funeral so I can live forever.

 

Green Head: . . . Um, yeah, welcome Deadbat. I remember you made a reservation here. . . How do you want to proceed.

 

Me: I don’t know how funeral homes work really. But I know how morgues work. If I bring you a dead body - that I may or may not have killed myself - would it be cool to bury them in my place, but also let my like sleep in a coffin or something?

 

Green Head (speaking under his breath): Oh, lord.

 

Suddenly, I was jerked back from the front desk from where Green Head was sitting at by Allyson, who looked angry and distressed, though I couldn’t tell why.

 

Allyson: What my friend here  _ means _ to say is that she has a bit of a fear of death, and would like to get over it by hosting a funeral for a fake body that looks like her, if you would let us do that, sir.

 

Green Head (nodding slowly): Uh, yeah, I think that I can arrange that for you.

 

Allyson: Great! Why don’t we talk prices and then we can get out of your hair?

 

Me: Your very, very green hair.

 

As soon as I spoke, I could see something move into my line of vision. All at once, a man stood before me. He was dressed in a long trench coat, with a suit underneath it, reminding me of what Fox Mulder wore. The man also wore a prize winning smile, it seemed to take up his whole face. In less than a second he had gone from Mulder to the Joker in my head.

 

Joker: His hair is very green. See, even the girls are noticing, Eight Ball.

 

Allyson (under her breath): What kind of name is Eight Ball?

 

Joker: Well, let’s not waste our time with small talk, yeah? What is your name young lady?

 

Joker was looking down at me, and I was about to correct him on the whole ‘young lady’ thing, because I was far from a lady.

 

Allyson: This is my best friend, Bree. My name is Allyson, and that is my boyfriend Zayne. Very pleased to meet you, sir.

 

Joker (smiling at Allyson): Well, I am very pleased to meet you too. May I lead you to my office? There we can talk in private about what works best for this. . .  _ unique _ situation.

 

Allyson: That sounds lovely.

 

Joker then smiled at Allyson and me and began to walk to the back room that he came out of when he greeted us. Zayne followed hesitantly, until Allyson took his hand. She stoot between Zayne and me as she held our hands and lead us into the room that Joker was walking into.

 

Before we were swallowed up by the hallway, I looked back to see how Gre - er,  _ Eight Ball  _ was doing. He was watching us as we followed Joker into what seemed to be his office. He had on a worried expression, but it didn’t seem too urgent.

 

I faced forward as Allyson lead me into the long, dark hallway where anything could happen. My fears soon dissipated as we walked into a small, cozy looking office.

 

Joker (sweeping his hand around the room): Please, sit down.

 

Allyson (pulling up two extra chairs from the back of the room for her and Zayne): Okay, one second. So, I never caught your name out there.

 

Joker (chuckling): Why, how rude of me. My name is Jack. Jack Morris.

 

Allyson: Well, Mr Morris -

 

Jack Morris (interrupting Allyson): Please, call me Jack.

 

Allyson: Okay. So, Jack, where do we start? I’ve never arranged a funeral before.

 

I had just sat down by the time that Jack and Allyson were done with their small talk. I sat on Allyson’s left, and Zayne was slightly behind her on her right. He held her hand where they sat and he slowly faded into the background in my eyes, and in Jack’s too. But Allyson kept constant attention on everyone in the room.

 

Jack: Well, why don’t we start with who we’re going to bury?

 

Me: Well, I was thinking of finding a person that looks like me and maybe-

 

Allyson (interrupting me): We aren’t going to be burying a body, more like a fake stuffed animal shaped like a person. No one will be harmed during this whole thing, I can promise you that.

 

Jack (laughing): Why, it is quite alright. Your friend here is just a bit excited, nothing to be worked up over. Now, Allyson, I only need you here for this appointment, so if your friends want to go, they can.

 

Zayne and I made no move to leave. This place was creepy, and I loved it, but I didn’t want to miss out on talk about dead bodies! If I left now, how would things end?

 

Jack: This is the official stuff, where we talk prices, and burial dates. It isn’t very fun and we leave this room only once to look at the coffins, and I can tell you when that is if you want to see them. But is quite boring, and it is not something that impatient people like to sit through.

 

Me: I don’t get to see any dead bodies if I stick around?

 

Jack (laughing): Oh no, no one will be seeing dead bodies during this meeting, I can assure you that. We like to keep clients away from the other bodies, it is just a. . . precautionary measure.

 

Me: Oh. Well, I guess I’ll leave then. Zayne, you coming?

 

Zayne looked up up at me, then back and Jack and Allyson. Allyson rubbed her thumb over Zayne’s hand and smiled at him, though I couldn’t read her expression. Zayne sighed quietly and shook his head, tapping his foot slowly.

 

Me: I’ll be in the front office area then. I don’t care which coffin you pick, as long as it looks cool. And says ‘Deadbat’ on it.

 

Allyson (not paying attention to me): Of course, Bree.

 

I got up from my chair, making eye contact with Jack and then with Allyson as I walked out of the room. I didn’t know what I would do once I was out of the room, but it didn’t really matter.

 

I was an impatient person, and I just wanted to get over my fear so I could die already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, with this chapter, Bree and Eight Ball finally meet! This chapter is one of my favorites, I really love Bree's brand of humor, mixed with how Allyson reacts to everything that Bree does. This is based very much off of me and my friend's relationship, and it is pretty awesome that they helped me capture it into my writing!  
> I know that nothing huge has happened yet, and I will be getting there soon enough. But, for right now, enjoy the fluff/setting up characters.  
> And, as always, have a wonderful day and a super happy life!


	6. Chapter six: Eight Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight Ball's take on Bree's first trip to Henderson's Morgue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Bree's first time coming to the morgue in Eight Ball's perspective, so it will be almost a repeat of what happened in the last chapter, but it is also not.  
> I hope you enjoy!

I’ve had one of the most interesting days ever.

 

It all started when I woke up to a bird singing instead of my alarm clock. It was very weird, since I’ve never woken up to a bird singing. Ever. I never had the chance, since Dad has never has us live out in the country, and I’ve only ever lived in the city, where the smog and the people and cars surround me. It was very odd to wake up to a bird singing, but what was even more odd was when I could what kind of bird it was.

 

I couldn’t explain it, I threw my glasses on and saw the bird and thought _robin_. The bird looked like a robin, I guess, I mean I’ve never studied birds. But I knew what it was. It was singing really loudly and I sat and listened to it for a few seconds, in a trance by this living piece of nature that had somehow managed to not be killed by humans no matter how hard we try with carbon emissions, geoengineering and wifi and cell phone towers.

 

I then realized that the bird had woken me up fifteen minutes earlier than usual, and I had time to finish the things that I needed to get done before ‘Deadbat’ showed up to the morgue. I sighed and picked up my laptop, running over the new design for the morgue’s website and checking the email account that the morgue had, after checking my own first.

 

I turned off my alarm clock, and noticed that the robin had flown away. I was filled with an unexplained sadness, and then quickly swallowed it, walking over to my dresser, and pulling out my work shirt and a pair of jeans that I really liked. I then fussed with my hair for a few minutes, and put in my new gages that Claire had gotten me for winning my latest fight, and I walked out of my bedroom/employee break room and into the front area of the morgue.

 

For once, Claire wasn’t in the front of the morgue, complaining about losing something or trying to talk with me about the weather or how my day was going to go today (I usually told her that since didn’t go outside, I didn’t care about the weather and that my day today would be as shitty as yesterday, so there was no point in asking). It was kind of nice to be free of her positivity so early in the morning, but also kind of unsettling and unnerving. She is one of the few constants in my life, so have her be gone was kind of odd.

 

I sat at the front desk for what felt like mere minutes (I’m a very patient person) and then my computer notified me that it was time to flip the sign from closed to open on the door. I sighed and got up, feeling as though each step was draining all of my energy out of my body. I turned around the sign and then walked back to the desk, sitting down.

 

I thought about today and what was going on. Claire had gone shopping yesterday, so there was food for me to be able to make dinner and lunch for myself with, and that was always nice. There was also no chance of any of Dad’s target customer’s coming today, since we were having normal people coming in today.

 Well, maybe not totally normal, since the person who called me called herself ‘Deadbat’. But, who am I to judge, I call myself Eight Ball.

 

Things went on pretty much normally with the whole nothing to do part of the day, then the ‘is this day over yet?’ part of the day, and I was just on the ‘I really wish I could end it all right now’ part of my day (all within the span of only 10 minutes! I deserve a _medal_ for that!) when someone ran into the morgue.

 

She was a little over five feet tall, with a short, light pink dress on. Her long, dirty blonde hair fell over her shoulders and her back, giving her the look of someone from an Anime. Her large, blue eyes were light and the most perfect shade of blue that I had ever seen.

 

Swallowing, I readied myself to talk to her, as I was guessing that I was looking straight into the face of my Deadbat.

 

“Hello, welcome to Henderson’s Morgue. How may I help you?” I asked, smiling. She pursed her lips for a second, as if trying to figure out if I was the same person that she had talked to before. I smiled wider, feeling even more awkward. I hoped that this was just the effect that this girl had on people.

 

“I am Deadbat. I have come for a funeral so I can live forever.” She said, giving me a small smile. I sighed inwardly, knowing that this was, in fact, the same girl from the phone yesterday.

 

I blanked on what to say for a few seconds, and a silence entered the front room of the morgue. Only the sound of the clock ticking could be heard throughout the room, echoing off of the walls.

 

“Um, yeah, welcome Deadbat. I remember you made a reservation here. . . How do you want to proceed?” I asked, trying to grasp at any normalcy that I could with this girl and this case. She gave a bit of a confused look, but didn’t betray many emotions on her face. She was a bit of a closed book, which only made things more awkward.

 

“I don’t know how funeral homes work really.” She began to say, getting carried away in her speech. “But I know how morgues work. If I bring you a dead body - that I may or may not have killed myself - would it be cool to bury them in my place, but also let my like sleep in a coffin or something?”

 

My eyes got wide, and I blinked. So much for this being a normal case, just a girl who wanted a funeral. Of course this couldn’t be normal! Even the cute, crazy girl was a murderer! Was my life nothing but a bunch of criminals and murders coming into my home and demanding places for bodies?

 

“Oh, lord.” I whispered under my breath, nearly slamming my head on my desk.

Just before I was about to finally walk away from my post, I saw another girl run through the front door. She had blonde hair, but unlike Deadbat, it was clearly dyed. Badly. It need to be redyed, anyone could clearly see that it was dyed. I should know, my hair wasn’t naturally green.

 

She had on tight jeans and a short sleeved t shirt. Her whole outfit seemed to scream ‘I’m pretty and popular, worship me!’. I almost rolled my eyes at the pair of friends that was in front of me. The class sweetheart, valedictorian and probably biggest slut hanging around with. . . Deadbat. Yeah, a friendship made some deranged teenage girl’s wildest fantasies, for sure.

 

She yanked her friend’s arm back, anger and distress flickering across her face. She looked into my eyes, apologetic and sorry for her friend. Deadbat looked back at her friend as though it was crazy for her to be worried about Deadbat’s mental health.

 

“What my friend here _means_ to say,” The fake blonde said, looking into my eyes, trying to use her charm on me for some reason, “is that she has a bit of a fear of death, and would like to get over it by hosting a funeral for a fake body that looks like her, if you would let us do that, sir.”

 

“Uh, yeah, I think that I can arrange that for you.” I said quieter than before, nodding slowly.

 

“Great! Why don’t we talk prices and then we can get out of your hair?” She said politely, giving her best smile. She leaned forwards towards me, trying to come into my world and out of Deadbat’s.

 

If she only knew half of what I’ve done, she’d never leave Deadbat’s world. . .

 

“Your very, very green hair.” Chirped Deadbat, commenting on her friend’s previous statement and snapping me out of my own little world and back into the real world. I felt slightly offended that she had so openly pointed out my green hair in a slightly rude way, I spent a lot of time to take care of it and keep it this bright!

 

I should have known that as soon as soon as anyone said _anything_ about bright, green hair my father would come in to say hello. I watched him move out of the corner of my eye, feeling the hair on the back of my neck raise as he walked closed towards Deadbat, her friend and I.

 

Looking at the front door, I saw that there was another person walking into the morgue, a guy who was dressed like a normal teenager in America. He had dark black hair, dull green eyes and was wearing an outfit that probably costed at least a couple hundred dollars, shoes included.

 

He stepped behind Deadbat’s friend, just when my dad stepped out of the back room. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, I feared what he would have to say about this funeral’s proceedings. Dad wouldn’t say no to the money, that was true, but what would this say about us in this new town? What would people think?

 

Would we have to pack and leave right away when we had only just got here?

 

Dad, seemly unaware of my confused and fearful expressions, walked out of the back room with a plastered on smile. He was wearing a perfect pressed, jet black suit with his overcoat over it, since he wanted to look, as he called it, ‘very, very professional’.

 

Deadbat regarded him with awe, and I could see her take a small step back while her friend took a big step forwards, towards my dad. Maybe Deadbat _was_ the rational one out of the pair.

 

“His hair is very green.” My dad said, smiling at Deadbat and her friend and the boy who had snuck in behind them. To my dad’s credit, his smile didn’t falter, even as he spoke. “See, even the girls are noticing, Eight Ball.”

 

I saw Deadbat’s friend mutter something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Immediately, I could tell that Dad wasn’t going to bother with her. She just seemed to perfectly show off her ‘I’m better than you, I have money and I follow the rules’ kind of lifestyle. Focusing his attention to Deadbat, he spoke to her.

 

“Well, let’s not waste our time with small talk, yeah? What is your name young lady?” Dad asked, leaning towards Deadbat, and away from her friend.

 The wheels were turning in Deadbat’s mind, I could see her open her mouth to say something, and Deadbat’s friend seemed to notice that something bad were to happen if Deadbat would be able to speak freely.

 

    “This is my best friend, Bree.” Deadbat’s friend said, smiling. She motioned to Deadbat, who now had a proper name, and then back to herself. “My name is Allyson, and that is my boyfriend Zayne. Very pleased to meet you, sir.”

 

 I looked around at the group, tacking names onto each of the three new people in the room. Deadbat was Bree, Deadbat’s friend was Allyson, and the weird rich boy was Zayne.

 

What an oddly named group of individuals.

 

 “Well, I am very pleased to meet you too. May I lead you to my office? There we can talk in private about what works best for this. . . _unique_ situation.” Dad said, smiling at Allyson. Allyson smiled back happily.

 

“That sounds lovely.” She replied, her smiling growing broader. She looked behind her at Bree and Zayne, smiling at them too. Her smile was almost apologetic, but I didn’t think that anyone else cared to take note of it.

 

 Dad didn’t speak another word, and motioned back to his office, and the back room of the morgue. Claire hopefully wasn’t in there, I didn’t like her meeting the customers. It was just something that I did to protect her.

 

I watched as Allyson fearlessly followed my dad down the long, dark hallway. Her boyfriend hesitated before Allyson took his hand and dragged him behind her. Bree wasted no time in walking into the back room.

 

I watched as she looked back one more time to look back at me. I met her with a worried expression. Dad didn’t usually just take anyone into his back room. I tried to make myself smile, to give her some kind of reassurance as she walked down the dark hallway, but I couldn’t force myself to do anything but give her a worried look.

 

She then turned back to the hallway and continued to walk. I watched her as she left, being swallowed by the darkness.

 

When they were finally gone, I had time to check back up on the website. It was still a total mess, and I had nothing to do other than fix it all day. The time went by slowly as I colored and recolored the font, added pictures of the ‘friendly staff’, and added a FAQ section for anyone who had questions about how legal Henderson’s Morgue was.

 

I was creating the fourth question on the FAQ when Bree walked back into the room, looking bored. I stopped typing for a second, looking up at her.

 

“Hi there, Eight Ball. Why is your name Eight Ball?” She asked, cutting right to the chase. I was impressed with her forwardness, and yet it also got on my nerves.

 

 “I just like the game pool. Is that a crime?” I said, incredulous. She pursed her lips, thinking about it. I held back a laugh, it felt like I had somehow found another version of Claire, only more forward and less touchy feely.

 

“I guess not.” Deadbat said finally, then smiled at me intently. “What are you doing on your computer? Something fun? Can I see?”

 

I was struck at how much like a child she was, yet she somehow had an air of maturity. Jeez, I had never met someone like her before.

 

“Um, I’m just. . . Google?” I said defenselessly. Quickly I opened a new tab and typed in ‘moose watching’, pretending that I was going to go moose watching. That was believable, right?

 

Bree moved quickly from her place standing in front of my desk to stand to my immediate left. She looked at my computer screen, reading over everything that was going on. I was suddenly very happy that I had closed out the Morgue’s Website’s tab. I took my hand off of the mouse, and Bree quickly seized the small piece of computer hardware. 

"'Moose watching’?” Bree asked, meeting my eyes with a look of pure confusion. Her confusion turned to joy and elation and she looked at the sites. “I want to go moose watching! Let’s do it as part of my funeral!”

 

“I’m not sure if we can rent a moose for your funeral. . .” I said quietly, mulling it over in my head. That would be a lot of paperwork to get it to work.

 

 “I’m going to do it.” Bree said, determined. I smiled at her tone, it was refreshing to see someone who would be so honest to do something that wasn’t selfish and wouldn’t hurt other people once the deed was done.

 

“I’ll see if I can help you, then.” I said. Bree looked at me, slowly taking her hand off of the mouse. She smiled and laughed, nodding.

 

I’ve had one of the most interesting days ever.

 

    It all started when I woke up to a bird singing instead of my alarm clock. It was very weird, since I’ve never woken up to a bird singing. Ever. I never had the chance, since Dad has never has us live out in the country, and I’ve only ever lived in the city, where the smog and the people and cars surround me. It was very odd to wake up to a bird singing, but what was even more odd was when I could what kind of bird it was.

 

    I couldn’t explain it, I threw my glasses on and saw the bird and thought  _ robin _ . The bird looked like a robin, I guess, I mean I’ve never studied birds. But I knew what it was. It was singing really loudly and I sat and listened to it for a few seconds, in a trance by this living piece of nature that had somehow managed to not be killed by humans no matter how hard we try with carbon emissions, geoengineering and wifi and cell phone towers.

 

    I then realized that the bird had woken me up fifteen minutes earlier than usual, and I had time to finish the things that I needed to get done before ‘Deadbat’ showed up to the morgue. I sighed and picked up my laptop, running over the new design for the morgue’s website and checking the email account that the morgue had, after checking my own first.

 

    I turned off my alarm clock, and noticed that the robin had flown away. I was filled with an unexplained sadness, and then quickly swallowed it, walking over to my dresser, and pulling out my work shirt and a pair of jeans that I really liked. I then fussed with my hair for a few minutes, and put in my new gages that Claire had gotten me for winning my latest fight, and I walked out of my bedroom/employee break room and into the front area of the morgue.

 

    For once, Claire wasn’t in the front of the morgue, complaining about losing something or trying to talk with me about the weather or how my day was going to go today (I usually told her that since didn’t go outside, I didn’t care about the weather and that my day today would be as shitty as yesterday, so there was no point in asking). It was kind of nice to be free of her positivity so early in the morning, but also kind of unsettling and unnerving. She is one of the few constants in my life, so have her be gone was kind of odd.

 

   I sat at the front desk for what felt like mere minutes (I’m a very patient person) and then my computer notified me that it was time to flip the sign from closed to open on the door. I sighed and got up, feeling as though each step was draining all of my energy out of my body. I turned around the sign and then walked back to the desk, sitting down.

 

    I thought about today and what was going on. Claire had gone shopping yesterday, so there was food for me to be able to make dinner and lunch for myself with, and that was always nice. There was also no chance of any of Dad’s target customer’s coming today, since we were having normal people coming in today.

 

    Well, maybe not totally normal, since the person who called me called herself ‘Deadbat’. But, who am I to judge, I call myself Eight Ball.

 

    Things went on pretty much normally with the whole nothing to do part of the day, then the ‘is this day over yet?’ part of the day, and I was just on the ‘I really wish I could end it all right now’ part of my day (all within the span of only 10 minutes! I deserve a  _ medal  _ for that!) when someone ran into the morgue.

 

    She was a little over five feet tall, with a short, light pink dress on. Her long, dirty blonde hair fell over her shoulders and her back, giving her the look of someone from an Anime. Her large, blue eyes were light and the most perfect shade of blue that I had ever seen.

 

     Swallowing, I readied myself to talk to her, as I was guessing that I was looking straight into the face of my Deadbat.

 

    “Hello, welcome to Henderson’s Morgue. How may I help you?” I asked, smiling. She pursed her lips for a second, as if trying to figure out if I was the same person that she had talked to before. I smiled wider, feeling even more awkward. I hoped that this was just the effect that this girl had on people.

 

    “I am Deadbat. I have come for a funeral so I can live forever.” She said, giving me a small smile. I sighed inwardly, knowing that this was, in fact, the same girl from the phone yesterday.

 

     I blanked on what to say for a few seconds, and a silence entered the front room of the morgue. Only the sound of the clock ticking could be heard throughout the room, echoing off of the walls.

 

    “Um, yeah, welcome Deadbat. I remember you made a reservation here. . . How do you want to proceed?” I asked, trying to grasp at any normalcy that I could with this girl and this case. She gave a bit of a confused look, but didn’t betray many emotions on her face. She was a bit of a closed book, which only made things more awkward.

 

     “I don’t know how funeral homes work really.” She began to say, getting carried away in her speech. “But I know how morgues work. If I bring you a dead body - that I may or may not have killed myself - would it be cool to bury them in my place, but also let my like sleep in a coffin or something?”

 

     My eyes got wide, and I blinked. So much for this being a normal case, just a girl who wanted a funeral. Of course this couldn’t be normal! Even the cute, crazy girl was a murderer! Was my life nothing but a bunch of criminals and murders coming into my home and demanding places for bodies?

 

    “Oh, lord.” I whispered under my breath, nearly slamming my head on my desk.

     Just before I was about to finally walk away from my post, I saw another girl run through the front door. She had blonde hair, but unlike Deadbat, it was clearly dyed. Badly. It need to be redyed, anyone could clearly see that it was dyed. I should know, my hair wasn’t naturally green.

 

    She had on tight jeans and a short sleeved t shirt. Her whole outfit seemed to scream ‘I’m pretty and popular, worship me!’. I almost rolled my eyes at the pair of friends that was in front of me. The class sweetheart, valedictorian and probably biggest slut hanging around with. . . Deadbat. Yeah, a friendship made some deranged teenage girl’s wildest fantasies, for sure.

 

     She yanked her friend’s arm back, anger and distress flickering across her face. She looked into my eyes, apologetic and sorry for her friend. Deadbat looked back at her friend as though it was crazy for her to be worried about Deadbat’s mental health.

 

     “What my friend here  _ means _ to say,” The fake blonde said, looking into my eyes, trying to use her charm on me for some reason, “is that she has a bit of a fear of death, and would like to get over it by hosting a funeral for a fake body that looks like her, if you would let us do that, sir.”

 

      “Uh, yeah, I think that I can arrange that for you.” I said quieter than before, nodding slowly.

 

     “Great! Why don’t we talk prices and then we can get out of your hair?” She said politely, giving her best smile. She leaned forwards towards me, trying to come into my world and out of Deadbat’s.

 

    If she only knew half of what I’ve done, she’d never leave Deadbat’s world. . .

 

     “Your very, very green hair.” Chirped Deadbat, commenting on her friend’s previous statement and snapping me out of my own little world and back into the real world. I felt slightly offended that she had so openly pointed out my green hair in a slightly rude way, I spent a lot of time to take care of it and keep it this bright!

 

    I should have known that as soon as soon as anyone said  _ anything  _ about bright, green hair my father would come in to say hello. I watched him move out of the corner of my eye, feeling the hair on the back of my neck raise as he walked closed towards Deadbat, her friend and I.

 

    Looking at the front door, I saw that there was another person walking into the morgue, a guy who was dressed like a normal teenager in America. He had dark black hair, dull green eyes and was wearing an outfit that probably costed at least a couple hundred dollars, shoes included.

 

    He stepped behind Deadbat’s friend, just when my dad stepped out of the back room. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, I feared what he would have to say about this funeral’s proceedings. Dad wouldn’t say no to the money, that was true, but what would this say about us in this new town? What would people think?

 

    Would we have to pack and leave right away when we had only just got here?

 

    Dad, seemly unaware of my confused and fearful expressions, walked out of the back room with a plastered on smile. He was wearing a perfect pressed, jet black suit with his overcoat over it, since he wanted to look, as he called it, ‘very, very professional’.

 

    Deadbat regarded him with awe, and I could see her take a small step back while her friend took a big step forwards, towards my dad. Maybe Deadbat  _ was _ the rational one out of the pair.

 

    “His hair is very green.” My dad said, smiling at Deadbat and her friend and the boy who had snuck in behind them. To my dad’s credit, his smile didn’t falter, even as he spoke. “See, even the girls are noticing, Eight Ball.”

 

    I saw Deadbat’s friend mutter something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Immediately, I could tell that Dad wasn’t going to bother with her. She just seemed to perfectly show off her ‘I’m better than you, I have money and I follow the rules’ kind of lifestyle. Focusing his attention to Deadbat, he spoke to her.

 

    “Well, let’s not waste our time with small talk, yeah? What is your name young lady?” Dad asked, leaning towards Deadbat, and away from her friend.

 

    The wheels were turning in Deadbat’s mind, I could see her open her mouth to say something, and Deadbat’s friend seemed to notice that something bad were to happen if Deadbat would be able to speak freely.

 

    “This is my best friend, Bree.” Deadbat’s friend said, smiling. She motioned to Deadbat, who now had a proper name, and then back to herself. “My name is Allyson, and that is my boyfriend Zayne. Very pleased to meet you, sir.”

 

    I looked around at the group, tacking names onto each of the three new people in the room. Deadbat was Bree, Deadbat’s friend was Allyson, and the weird rich boy was Zayne. 

 

    What an oddly named group of individuals.

 

    “Well, I am very pleased to meet you too. May I lead you to my office? There we can talk in private about what works best for this. . .  _ unique _ situation.” Dad said, smiling at Allyson. Allyson smiled back happily.

 

    “That sounds lovely.” She replied, her smiling growing broader. She looked behind her at Bree and Zayne, smiling at them too. Her smile was almost apologetic, but I didn’t think that anyone else cared to take note of it.

 

    Dad didn’t speak another word, and motioned back to his office, and the back room of the morgue. Claire hopefully wasn’t in there, I didn’t like her meeting the customers. It was just something that I did to protect her.

 

    I watched as Allyson fearlessly followed my dad down the long, dark hallway. Her boyfriend hesitated before Allyson took his hand and dragged him behind her. Bree wasted no time in walking into the back room.

 

    I watched as she looked back one more time to look back at me. I met her with a worried expression. Dad didn’t usually just take anyone into his back room. I tried to make myself smile, to give her some kind of reassurance as she walked down the dark hallway, but I couldn’t force myself to do anything but give her a worried look.

 

    She then turned back to the hallway and continued to walk. I watched her as she left, being swallowed by the darkness.

 

    When they were finally gone, I had time to check back up on the website. It was still a total mess, and I had nothing to do other than fix it all day. The time went by slowly as I colored and recolored the font, added pictures of the ‘friendly staff’, and added a FAQ section for anyone who had questions about how legal Henderson’s Morgue was.

 

    I was creating the fourth question on the FAQ when Bree walked back into the room, looking bored. I stopped typing for a second, looking up at her.

 

    “Hi there, Eight Ball. Why is your name Eight Ball?” She asked, cutting right to the chase. I was impressed with her forwardness, and yet it also got on my nerves.

 

    “I just like the game pool. Is that a crime?” I said, incredulous. She pursed her lips, thinking about it. I held back a laugh, it felt like I had somehow found another version of Claire, only more forward and less touchy feely.

 

    “I guess not.” Deadbat said finally, then smiled at me intently. “What are you doing on your computer? Something fun? Can I see?”

 

     I was struck at how much like a child she was, yet she somehow had an air of maturity. Jeez, I had never met someone like her before.

 

    “Um, I’m just. . . Google?” I said defenselessly. Quickly I opened a new tab and typed in ‘moose watching’, pretending that I was going to go moose watching. That was believable, right?

 

     Bree moved quickly from her place standing in front of my desk to stand to my immediate left. She looked at my computer screen, reading over everything that was going on. I was suddenly very happy that I had closed out the Morgue’s Website’s tab. I took my hand off of the mouse, and Bree quickly seized the small piece of computer hardware.

 

    “‘Moose watching’?” Bree asked, meeting my eyes with a look of pure confusion. Her confusion turned to joy and elation and she looked at the sites. “I want to go moose watching! Let’s do it as part of my funeral!”

 

      “I’m not sure if we can rent a moose for your funeral. . .” I said quietly, mulling it over in my head. That would be a lot of paperwork to get it to work.

 

    “I’m going to do it.” Bree said, determined. I smiled at her tone, it was refreshing to see someone who would be so honest to do something that wasn’t selfish and wouldn’t hurt other people once the deed was done.

 

     “I’ll see if I can help you, then.” I said. Bree looked at me, slowly taking her hand off of the mouse. She smiled and laughed, nodding.

 

     “Thank you, Eight Ball. That means more than you know!” Deadbat said, hugging me. My immediate reaction was to shove her off of my body and away from me, but I couldn’t seem to do it.

 

     “Yeah, sure, whatever.” I muttered, beginning to have second thoughts about telling Bree that I could help her.

 

"Thank you, Eight Ball. That means more than you know!” Deadbat said, hugging me. My immediate reaction was to shove her off of my body and away from me, but I couldn’t seem to do it.

 

 “Yeah, sure, whatever.” I muttered, beginning to have second thoughts about telling Bree that I could help her.

 

 _You have a first thought?_ A little voice asked in my head, making me laugh inside, just waiting for this hug to end already.

 

I didn't know how to feel about Bree, just that I knew that she was like me, someone who never fit it where they were placed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short one, I know.  
> I really love being able to show something in one person's eyes and then onto other perspective later, kind of shows you how life is, you know?  
> Anyways, have a great day, a wonderful month and a happy end of 2016!  
> Happy holidays to all!


	7. Chapter seven: Bree

    Me: Things went really well at the morgue today, guys!

 

    Mom: That’s nice, sweetie. Pass the potatoes?

 

    We were all sitting down at the dinner table later that night, just Dad, Mom and I. Our large dining room was made special just for meals that were important enough for crystal chandeliers, imported wine and fancy food that I hated eating. I mean, what was wrong with junk food and brats? I didn't see the point in eating food I couldn't pronounce the name of.

 

    And, tonight was one of the nights when we were eating in the special dining room, since today had been a big day for me.

 

     Me (picking up the potatoes and handing them to Mom): Yeah, here you go.

 

     Mom (angry): Manners, Bree.

 

     Me: Please take these potatoes you asked for, Mother. Can I help you with anything else?

 

     Mom (nodding slowly in approval): Much better, Bree.

 

     Silence fell over the room like a bad smell. Dad didn’t really seem to notice, he was too busy playing with his phone. He had gotten a new app (Clash of Clans) and was trying to win a battle, he really wanted to level up. I didn't fully understand the game, I was more of a Halo person myself.

 

     Mom wasn’t happy that Dad had his phone out at the table, but he had made dinner tonight. It was steak (specialty steak, probably imported from somewhere if I know my parents) and he had cooked it perfectly. Mom had made potatoes and corn, then some casserole on the side, salad and pie for dessert. It was just a normal dinner in our house.

 

     Me: So, I think that the funeral planning is going well.

 

     Mom: And talks with Dr North are also going well. You’ll be meeting with her soon enough, sweetie. Then the doctors will probably adjust your medication for the drugs that Dr North will give you. Then all will be well. Then you can worry more about school, and less about things that don’t matter.

 

     Me (speaking quietly): But it makes me happy.

 

    Mom (scoffing): Bree, you can’t just  _ be happy _ and expect to hold up the family legacy. You must go to Harvard, then get a degree in something important and have perfect family in perfect house. Then retire and then die. That is how things are going to go.

 

    Me: If I make it that far.

 

    Mom (angry): Don’t talk like that! You will kick cancer’s ass, or else I will kick your’s!

 

    The silence once again fell over the room, even Dad looked up from his phone (Samsung Galaxy S7). Mom dropped her fork, and the sound of metal and china colliding was the only sound in the room. The sound of my happiness fracturing again was lost in the sound of the china chipping.

 

     Mom: I’m sorry, everyone, that was very out of line for me.

 

    Mom was shaking, she hadn’t had an outburst like this in a while. She took a deep breath and picked her fork back up again, moving in a rigid way that made her look like a robot. I was still just a little convinced that she might be a robot secretly under all of the makeup and implants.

 

     Mom (looking me in the eyes): Bree, you _ cannot _ talk like that. We have the best doctors money can buy here, you will pull through. And once you’ve beat down cancer, you’re going to have an amazing life. You’ll marry rich, have many children and have the perfect life. You’ll be happy.

 

     Me: If you are so sure about my life being so perfect and wonderful, why even forbid me from talking about what would happen in the treatments fail? Why stop me from talking about what would happen if I died?

 

    Mom: Because, I read in a parenting book that talk about death is bad for growing minds. Now be quiet and eat or else I am going to take away the wifi, and not turn it back on until you stop talking about this silly funeral.

 

   Dad: Not the wifi! Please, Janice, not the wifi!

 

   Mom (slightly annoyed): Do not call me 'Janice' in front of Bree. I read in a parenting magazine that it is bad for children. And yes, I will turn it off until Bree is done talking about death and dying. Understood?

 

    Mom looked at me when she said the last part, and I felt myself deflate inside. So much for telling them all about talking to Eight Ball, and about how he would help me get a moose at my funeral. I feared that telling her would make the moose idea die, and that I'd never get one. I kept my mouth shut at that thought.

 

    Me: Yes, mother, I understand what you are saying, and I will respect your wishes.

 

    Mom: You even memorized the saying! How wonderful! Good girl, Bree!

 

   Mom’s pride carried her through dinner, and through asking our maid, Celeste, to clear off the table and make sure that all the dishes were clean in the correct way, and then put back where they needed to go. I threw Celeste an apologetic look, and she just shrugged smiled.

 

    Once dinner was over, I walked up to my bedroom, flopping down onto my bed. I unplugged my laptop (A blue Windows 10 HP laptop with an Intel Core Processor), and pulled it onto my lap, opening up my preferred Internet messaging app. The name was weird, so I didn't memorize it.

 

    After catching a slight glimpse of the Henderson’s Morgue website that Eight Ball was working on, I had Googled it and had gone to the FAQ tab, looking for some way of contact. There I found out that there was an account for the morgue on the same messaging site that I used.

 

     I logged into the app, typing in my user name ( RoosterTeeth4Life ) and my password (2dumb2live). I smiled, the references were just truly amazing. I contacted HendesonsMorgue_Offcail by asking for a contact request, saying that I was a customer. The reply was very quick

 

HendersonsMorgue_Offcial : Hello, valued customer. This is Eight Ball speaking, how may I help you today?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: hi, eight ball. It is me, bree!

 

     HendersonsMorgue_Offcial: Bree? Like, as in Bree the girl who came in today for a funeral?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: ya

 

    HendersonsMorgue_Offcial: Oh. I see. Can you prove to me that it is you? Just for security reasons.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: we are going to rent a moose at my funeral

 

    HendersonsMorgue_Offcial: Hello, Bree. Not to be rude, but why are you talking to me?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: i was just thinking, why not talk to my new bestest friend ever, eight ball?

 

     HendersonsMorgue_Offcial: This is an official Henderson's Morgue account. Would you like my personal account so we can talk about personal things?

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: ya

 

    HendersonsMorgue_Offcial: Okay, it is HenryTheEigth

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: ok

 

     I closed out of the other chat and beat Eight Ball to sending a contact request. He accepted, and I smiled at the quick response.

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: hey, eight ball. How are you doing?

 

     HenryTheEigth: I’m doing really well, thank you. How are things for you, Bree?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: not so good. I got yelled at. My mom was being rude.

 

     HenryTheEigth: Do you want to talk about it?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: ya

 

    HenryTheEigth: Then go ahead and talk.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: only if you promise never to tell anyone that is the only way

 

    HenryTheEigth: I promise.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: thanks. So, i was having dinner tonight before i was talking to you and i was eating and then my mom yelled at me for thinking and talking about death and dying

 

HenryTheEigth : Oh. It sounds like she is just trying to take care of you. Mothers do that.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: maybe. What is your mom like, eight ball?

 

    HenryTheEigth: She is nice. And pretty. But I don’t think my mom matters right now, we are talking about you right now. How can I help you, Bree?

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: im not sure. Make sure that you get the moose, i guess

 

    HenryTheEigth: I will make sure of it.

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: promise?

 

     HenryTheEigth: I promise.

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: ok

 

     HenryTheEigth: Feeling better?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: sorta

 

    HenryTheEigth: Bree, I have a very important question to ask you.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: wht?

 

    HenryTheEigth: What is ‘Rooster Teeth’?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: a production company. They made red vs blue, rwby, camp camp and xray and vav

 

    HenryTheEigth: Sounds fun. Which one is your favorite?

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: i really like rwby and red vs blue. Also camp camp

 

    HenryTheEigth: What are they each about? They sound pretty good.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: rwby is about warriors who get ptsd after the third season, red vs blue is about two armies of idiots who are fighting each other and camp camp is about a camp

 

     HenryTheEigth: Well, they sound like they are each worth a watch.

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: they are on youtube

 

     HenryTheEigth: So I can just search for them?

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: ya

 

    HenryTheEigth: Sounds good. I’ll go look at rwby, it sounds like the most interesting.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: you should watch red vs blue first. It is longer and there are references to red vs blue in rwby

 

    HenryTheEigth: Okay, I’ll do that now.

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: Wait, before we sign off, promise me something

 

    HenryTheEigth: Again? ;)

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: ya

 

    HenryTheEigth: What is it?

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: watch them. My parents always lie about watching the series. They are good, i just wish that people would give them a chance. They are all really good, i promise.

 

    HenryTheEigth: I promise to watch them and give them my attention. One more thing, Bree, before I go.

 

    RoosterTeeth4Life: wht?

 

    HenryTheEigth: You feeling better now?

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: . . . ya

 

     HenryTheEigth: Good. Good night, Bree

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: thnx, henry

 

     HenryTheEigth: It’s Eight Ball.

 

     RoosterTeeth4Life: *shrugs*

 

     I closed out my messaging app, not waiting to see what Eight Ball had to say next. I smiled, it was funny how happy he made me just then. I laughed, not caring that Mom and Dad might be able to hear me.

 

     I plugged my laptop back into its charger and I changed into my pajamas, falling asleep holding my stuffed Agent Washington doll. I had paid nearly three hundred dollars to buy it on Etsy, and I slept with it every night since it was shipped to my house.

 

     I pulled the covers over my body, relishing in the coolness of the fabric, and then the warmth that it quickly was replaced with.

 

    Me: Goodnight, Agent Washington. Goodnight, Eight Ball.


End file.
